Humble origins of Microsoft's Tag iPhone app

Microsoft spends billions of dollars each year on research and development, but it got its new iPhone application for the price of a couple weeks of Starbucks coffee.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft just released its second iPhone application, Tag, and it looks like a winner. Tag lets you create your own bar code and then allows other users to "scan" it with their iPhones, accessing whatever information you may want them to see: your contact information, advertisements, and more. I'm thinking of putting one on my business cards.

Tag didn't start out as an iPhone application, however. You can also use the service with Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, and J2ME phones, and for good reason: Tag was developed well before the iPhone hit the market. Back then, it was just a rumor.

I was talking with a colleague last night who used to work at Razorfish in San Francisco, now owned by Microsoft. Razorfish ran a competition back in 2006 for cutting-edge mobile applications, and Tag, developed by two consultants in Razorfish's San Francisco office, won the competition.

The grand prize? A $50 Starbucks gift certificate. As my colleague tells it, his friends "spent more than (the prize money) in Jolt Cola and Cheezy Poofs while they were coding to get it done in time": the humble beginnings of innovation.

Whatever the origin, however, Tag looks like a great use of mobile technology, and it is an indication that Microsoft can still innovate or, as in this case, can still discover others' innovations and release them under its brand. That's a talent, too.

[bourgtai]

Except that there is already a form of binary data image that uses a block of black and white squares to code data, which is then read by a designated app on camera phones. I can't remember the name of it right now.

[AdeBarkah]

You're probably referring to 2D barcode, one popular variant being the "QR code" which is huge in Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code

[pjhenry1216]

I read about a company (maybe they're related to this) that would create a tag and put it on clothes and stuff. If people scanned it, it would link to whatever sites the user wanted it to. Unfortunately can't remember the name, but I think it may have been non-US (could be wrong though).

[Salacious]

This has been around for at least a year in Sweden. A free application is downloaded to the cell phone and you can read tags from a newspaper or similar to get more information about a subject. In Sweden the name of this function is "tag".
Apparently this originated in Japan and is very common there.
So Microsofts continues to invent things by copying others.

A link to some "tags":
http://www.aftonbladet.se/tagga/article3501358.ab

[lmasanti]

quote:
"Microsoft can still innovate or, as in this case, can still discover others' innovations and release them under its brand. That's a talent, too."

Do you remember the origins of DOS?

"Talented" thiefs also are proud of their talent!

[seven7dust]

very well said !
although it's usually the smaller companies that r thieves
over here the worlds largest Software company continues to steal

wonder where all those billions per year spent on RnD r ending up
they could might as well be feeding a few African countries with it

[tag_dev]

I'm pretty sure it cost them more than a cup of coffee, I'm pretty sure the dev who wrote the core Tag routines doesn't even LIKE coffee.

[gaiagraphics]

tag_dev, what happened with the tag software? Originally all I had to do was show the tag to my iPhone and it would read it almost instantly and take me to the website, dial the phone, etc. Now the software looks like the above right screenshot and I can't get my phone to read printed tags. Onscreen tags can usually be read, but not projected tags. Can we go back to the way it was? I was planning to use the tag on a number of projects and now that it up in the air. One project is going to press this week, so if I don't hear from you soon we will probably remove the tags. They are really a great technology.

[spaul69]

We'll maybe it will actually get some use here in the US if Microsoft starts backing it. If other people are doing it already, It is not really well known.

[ken_wilsonii]

Tried this application, completely useless, failed repeatedly.

Took a picture of a CD barcode, nothing.
Took a picture of the front of the same CD..no barcode using Snaptell, found it no problem.

Use Snaptell, a much better application

[DavidAReeves]

Actually, it works exactly as designed.

It doesn't work with the UPC barcodes found on products. It works only with Microsoft 2D tags. (www.microsoft.com/tag)

[NeoReader]

NeoMedia Technologies grandfathered this technology back in the mid 90?s and have been doing mobile code scanning long before any other company in this space.

NeoMedia has a rich patent portfolio that covers scanning barcodes with a camera enabled mobile device to connect to the Internet, comparison shop, and/or retrieve online content.

http://www.neom.com/13.html

[Neil_Peart]

In my opinion, Microsoft is infringing on Neomedia's patents. This is serious.

[gaiagraphics]

Hi - Does anyone know what's happening with the Microsoft Tag?

I think it's a brilliant application, downloaded the software to my iPhone and it worked perfectly, whether the tag was printed or on-screen.

All I had to do was show the tag to the phone and it took me to the website of choice (or dialed the number, etc.)

However, the application changed. Now you have to take a pic of the tag and it had better be dead center and with no shadows or distortions. It now works most of the time with onscreen tags, although not if the tag is projected. It doesn't work at all for printed tags. I reloaded the software and it's the same thing, like the screenshot you have above right.

I'm bummed about this because we were going to use the tag on a number of printed and online materials and now it's not the great thing that it used to be. Maybe tag_dev, do you know what's going on? We really want to use the tag. I've gotten tons of people (my clients) to approve their use and now I'm thinking we can't use them. Please help.

[e-mail]